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Smallest microplastics in oceans – which go largely undetected - identified more effectively with innovative and cheap new method, developed by University of Warwick researchers

New method can detect microplastics as small as the width of a human hair, using a fluorescent dye

Smallest microplastics in oceans – which go largely undetected - identified more effectively with innovative and cheap new method, developed by University of Warwick researchers

New method can detect microplastics as small as the width of a human hair, using a fluorescent dye

Previous scientific field work surveys report that only 1% of the plastic waste in the oceans has been found – this new research could lead to discovering the missing 99%

?The smallest microplastics in our oceans – which go largely undetected and are potentially harmful – could be more effectively identified using an innovative and inexpensive new method, developed by researchers at the University of Warwick.

New research, led by Gabriel Erni-Cassola and Dr. Joseph A. Christie-Oleza from Warwick’s School of Life Sciences, has established a pioneering way to detect the smaller fraction of microplastics – many as small as 20 micrometres (comparable to the width of a human hair or wool fibre) - using a fluorescent dye.

The dye specifically binds to plastic particles, and renders them easily visible under a fluorescence microscope. This allows scientists to distinguish microplastics amongst other natural materials and makes it easy to accurately quantify them.